(Thread IKs:
dead gay comedy forums)
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dead gay comedy forums posted:Commodity fetishism writeup The point about objects ruling the rulers (oranges example) is one that's always stuck with me, because even when I was totally ignorant of anything outside of the typical American political landscape, I still felt like The Market was spoken about and treated like a deity, what with trusting the invisible hand and all. At the time it was coming from a protestant POV, since I interpreted this as idolatry, which I guess wasn't necessarily wrong per se, just using a framework that was insufficient to explain anything further than that.
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Apr 29, 2024 21:21
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Skaffen-Amtiskaw posted:I have thoughts. People did a good job of addressing this, and trying to use their same, unusual definitions to do so. This thread really is cool. I'm 99% sure they're a inventory/supply chain analyst in manufacturing. Not sure where the thread is at with with commodity fetishism, I've got some machine transfer of value posts, but don't want to disrupt the fetish if it's still going.
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Apr 30, 2024 23:33
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Really enjoying Economic Formation of Brazil so far. It's actually great to jump into analyzing the economy of Spain and Portugal in the late XV century right after reading Marx describe the same period in England, and how Belgium connected them.
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May 1, 2024 05:38
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Pentecoastal Elites posted:I'm just starting to dig in and am having to backtrack quite a bit to grasp things, but in short its about an alternative to a computational model of intelligent behavior (your brain holds an internal model of the world that it projects on the external world in order to do stuff like comprehend visual input and coordinate movement) and instead posits that intelligent behavior is an emergent phenomenon that arises between agent and environment, that the world-interior-model doesn't exist as it is commonly/popularly understood, and provides a solution to the brains in a jar problem because the external world is one half of the sauce agents of complex behavior arise from this is almost, but, since this is the marxism thread, not exactly correct: it is not that behavior emerges out of interaction between animal and environment, as distinct entities, but that behavior emerges from the dynamics, the change over time, of the animal-environment system, as a single nondecomposable entity. when you cross the road and need to determine if the car would hit you or not, the time to contact is directly specified by the ratio of the car's optical angle to its rate of expansion in your visual field, and this cannot be fully understood in terms of the animal or the environment, but in the dynamical relation between them. the relation only exists because of the unity of the animal-environment system, and under the ecological view, that sort of relation is the basic building block of behavior, of material conditions. this becomes important when dealing with more complex behavior like speech, which, in a simplified sense, exists because life evolved to take advantage of physical relations that allow vibrations to systematically propagate through the atmosphere, but also depends on the history of the system's evolution, i.e., words communicate meaning because in the larger animal-environment system's history a particular pattern of vibration was used, rather than anything we can extract from the interaction between the particular animal in its particular environment. this dependence on history is what makes the behavior complex, compared to simpler examples like crossing the road, catching a ball or grasping a hammer. thus, for behavioral purposes, it is not exactly the interior representational model that doesn't exist, but the individual animal as distinct entity itself.
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May 1, 2024 09:04
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Pentecoastal Elites posted:I'm just starting to dig in and am having to backtrack quite a bit to grasp things, but in short its about an alternative to a computational model of intelligent behavior (your brain holds an internal model of the world that it projects on the external world in order to do stuff like comprehend visual input and coordinate movement) and instead posits that intelligent behavior is an emergent phenomenon that arises between agent and environment, that the world-interior-model doesn't exist as it is commonly/popularly understood, and provides a solution to the brains in a jar problem because the external world is one half of the sauce agents of complex behavior arise from Zodium posted:this is almost, but, since this is the marxism thread, not exactly correct: it is not that behavior emerges out of interaction between animal and environment, as distinct entities, but that behavior emerges from the dynamics, the change over time, of the animal-environment system, as a single nondecomposable entity. when you cross the road and need to determine if the car would hit you or not, the time to contact is directly specified by the ratio of the car's optical angle to its rate of expansion in your visual field, and this cannot be fully understood in terms of the animal or the environment, but in the dynamical relation between them. the relation only exists because of the unity of the animal-environment system, and under the ecological view, that sort of relation is the basic building block of behavior, of material conditions. this becomes important when dealing with more complex behavior like speech, which, in a simplified sense, exists because life evolved to take advantage of physical relations that allow vibrations to systematically propagate through the atmosphere, but also depends on the history of the system's evolution, i.e., words communicate meaning because in the larger animal-environment system's history a particular pattern of vibration was used, rather than anything we can extract from the interaction between the particular animal in its particular environment. this dependence on history is what makes the behavior complex, compared to simpler examples like crossing the road, catching a ball or grasping a hammer. thus, for behavioral purposes, it is not exactly the interior representational model that doesn't exist, but the individual animal as distinct entity itself. sounds like a good thread and i gotta get plat
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May 1, 2024 16:30
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Zodium posted:this is almost, but, since this is the marxism thread, not exactly correct: it is not that behavior emerges out of interaction between animal and environment, as distinct entities, but that behavior emerges from the dynamics, the change over time, of the animal-environment system, as a single nondecomposable entity. when you cross the road and need to determine if the car would hit you or not, the time to contact is directly specified by the ratio of the car's optical angle to its rate of expansion in your visual field, and this cannot be fully understood in terms of the animal or the environment, but in the dynamical relation between them. the relation only exists because of the unity of the animal-environment system, and under the ecological view, that sort of relation is the basic building block of behavior, of material conditions. this becomes important when dealing with more complex behavior like speech, which, in a simplified sense, exists because life evolved to take advantage of physical relations that allow vibrations to systematically propagate through the atmosphere, but also depends on the history of the system's evolution, i.e., words communicate meaning because in the larger animal-environment system's history a particular pattern of vibration was used, rather than anything we can extract from the interaction between the particular animal in its particular environment. this dependence on history is what makes the behavior complex, compared to simpler examples like crossing the road, catching a ball or grasping a hammer. thus, for behavioral purposes, it is not exactly the interior representational model that doesn't exist, but the individual animal as distinct entity itself. this is pretty corny but whatever, it is May Day and I am filled with comradely bonhomie: sincerely thank you for turning me on to this stuff. It's giving me a sort of metaphysical? spiritual? semi-religious? insight into Marxism and communism more broadly. The "nondecomposable entity" as you put it is the real thing that exists, and the liberal, capitalist idea that an atomic individual can be extracted from not just their communal, but their ecological and even ontological nature is not just a antisocial fiction, but an anti-material and anti-reality fiction. I think that is an extremely profound insight, and one that resonates with me as indisputably true, but prior to this I had no real way to reconcile it with a strictly material world. I'm still too new to this to really piece this together yet (as you can tell from my imprecision) but the shapes are becoming clearer.
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May 1, 2024 17:37
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if anyone is looking for books verso is having a sale for most of mayquote:Red May Sale:
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May 1, 2024 20:35
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Pentecoastal Elites posted:this is pretty corny but whatever, it is May Day and I am filled with comradely bonhomie: sincerely thank you for turning me on to this stuff. It's giving me a sort of metaphysical? spiritual? semi-religious? insight into Marxism and communism more broadly. The "nondecomposable entity" as you put it is the real thing that exists, and the liberal, capitalist idea that an atomic individual can be extracted from not just their communal, but their ecological and even ontological nature is not just a antisocial fiction, but an anti-material and anti-reality fiction. I think that is an extremely profound insight, and one that resonates with me as indisputably true, but prior to this I had no real way to reconcile it with a strictly material world. this is one of the reasons it can be so joyful, you're liberated to know models are tools, not the things. you get to welcome back awe
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May 1, 2024 21:35
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been noticing a lot of people in cspam lately confused as to why western society isnt choosing to rationally uphold universal common interests for the sake of social stability and prosperity like a good meritocracy is supposed to on an unrelated note, bump
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May 3, 2024 19:22
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On that note. I've unfortunately had to read and reread parts of capital for this, but here goes... Going back to the coat making machine, I want to hit transfer of value explicitly. I don't want to skip ahead. I'm going to use numbers, but please don't get caught in the numbers, it's just an attempt to simplify. Coat Machine Mk 1 cost $500 in material and $500 in labor to create. Mk 1 has a value of $1,000. Mk 1 will completely breakdown, unrepairably, after creating 10 coats, and create 1 coat a day. Capitalist Elon purchases Mk 1. He pays an employee $10/day to operate the machine. Coats require $50 in materials to create. So a coat consists of 1/10th of the machine ($100) plus a day of labor ($10) plus materials ($50) or $160. Elon sells the coat for $200 at the standard market price, he has exploited $40 from the laborer. I'm disregarding the upstream ltv exploitation of the capitalist who created the machine. Is this all correct?
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May 3, 2024 22:47
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I'm pretty excited if I've got this right for whatever that means, and not because marx was wrong.
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May 3, 2024 22:54
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BillsPhoenix posted:Coat Machine Mk 1 cost $500 in material and $500 in labor to create. Mk 1 has a value of $1,000. NO. Why would you disregard this. Just make it worth $1,200. Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3 has issued a correction as of 00:38 on May 4, 2024 |
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May 4, 2024 00:22
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BillsPhoenix posted:On that note. I've unfortunately had to read and reread parts of capital for this, but here goes... functional, congratulations. you might want to specify exchange value. the next thing to consider for a model is real estate and energy costs.
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May 4, 2024 00:30
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way behind on this thread but i'm continuing this tangent here so as not to derail the israel/palestine thread:Clip-On Fedora posted:I don't think that's a unique trait to capitalism though. Every system of government has rules, and every ruler has and has had constraints on what they could and could not do, even the ones that were considered divine. I absolutely agree that Capitalism is a system that results in the few having power over the many though. not saying it's unique. the point is that the few who benefit from the system of capitalism only benefit if they act in the way the system prescribes. the machine was created through actions of the generations of the few, but the modern descendants only control portions of it and they are punished if they don't pull the levers according to the rules of the system. kinda like how a king has to obey divine law and if he wants to get a divorce, he's going to have to create a new subsystem that can support that notion
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May 4, 2024 07:37
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BillsPhoenix posted:On that note. I've unfortunately had to read and reread parts of capital for this, but here goes... this all looks consistent, but i want to draw an important conclusion from it: $160 is not the coat's exchange value, but merely what the coat costs the capitalist to put together. if the coat actually and legitimately retails for $200, that means that a day's worth of labor actually generates $50 worth of value. that's why we can give $150 worth of stuff to a laborer at starting time and, at closing time, collect a $200 commodity from that laborer to put out on the market. we can now backsolve to determine that the machine requires ten days to build, and the materials the machine is made of require ten days to mine, such that its own $1000 value is the materialization of twenty worker-days of labor (similarly, it took someone a day to scare up all the materials required to make a coat, which is why a completed coat represents four worker-days of labor all together) this does mean that the $40 delta between the capitalist's costs and the coat's price represents surplus value captured by the capitalist through exploitation. it also means the rate of surplus value is a whopping 400%; i can pay someone $10 to get them to generate $50 of value for me, so every dollar i spend on labor comes back to me fourfold. on the other hand, my rate of profit is merely 25% (i put $160 into the production process and end up with $200, so every dollar i invest only spawns 25 cents on top of itself), so i, the capitalist, feel like i'm benefiting from exploitation to a much lower extent than my own workers feel they're being exploited. since i can't just decide willy-nilly to move dollars between constant and variable capital (presumably the mk.1 is the current state of the art of coatmaking, and any more labor-intensive method will be too slow to allow me to compete), it's not really apparent to me that all my actual profit is coming from the humans involved in my operation; to me, all the different kinds of capital feel interchangeable as far as my final success or failure go, and in fact i feel like i'm much more important than my workers to the production process because i'm ponying up a whopping $150 of tools and materials per coat, and they're contributing a pitiful $10 of labor! i'm cutting my own throat, here! and these jokers are saying they want a union now?? Ferrinus has issued a correction as of 07:56 on May 4, 2024 |
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May 4, 2024 07:47
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Ferrinus posted:since i can't just decide willy-nilly to move dollars between constant and variable capital (presumably the mk.1 is the current state of the art of coatmaking, and any more labor-intensive method will be too slow to allow me to compete), it's not really apparent to me that all my actual profit is coming from the humans involved in my operation; to me, all the different kinds of capital feel interchangeable as far as my final success or failure go, and in fact i feel like i'm much more important than my workers to the production process because i'm ponying up a whopping $150 of tools and materials per coat, and they're contributing a pitiful $10 of labor! i'm cutting my own throat, here! and these jokers are saying they want a union now?? followup thought: my workers realize that i contribute stuff worth $150 to the production process, while they contribute something worth $10. that means that, if we're being fair, they should be entitled to 1/16th of the proceeds. so, really, out of each $200 coat sold, they should receive $12.50 of pay for the day and i should only get to keep the remaining $187.50, such that my profit per coat is now a measly $37.50. the struggle over this wage increase is a protracted and acrimonious one, but finally the union wins out, and i am forced to overpay my workers for their labor-power by a whopping 25% ...such that the rate of surplus value is now $37.50 unpaid labor per day/$12.50 paid labor per day = 300%. i'm still getting tons of free value out of their labor! they're only paid for their work for like two hours and just give me the other six, gratis! but i don't realize this. i'm just spitting mad at my rate of profit dropping from 25% to 23%, and meanwhile they're celebrating a proportionately huge wage increase, finally able to start saving for that new car they've been eyeing or whatever. neither i nor my workers understand that i'm still massively, massively winning, getting richer and richer at huge expense to them, because none of us are marxists Ferrinus has issued a correction as of 08:16 on May 4, 2024 |
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May 4, 2024 08:06
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crepeface posted:way behind on this thread but i'm continuing this tangent here so as not to derail the israel/palestine thread: I think people try too hard to come up with a framework that denies America's importance and the importance of nation-states within the global capitalist system. It's messy and it's contradictory but that's the essential ad hoc nature of how these systems develop. Capital can be both international but also has a residency, and states can act in the interests of the international bourgeois franchise but more often act in the interests of their national bourgeois. The primary characteristic of being within the imperial core is that your national bourgeois gets to assert its own interests over the interests of the global periphery, so long as they remain subservient to the United States, which fully accounts for half of NATO's military power in total and is the only NATO country that still has a functioning blue water navy, even if it's falling apart. The end result is a hot mess where contradictions keep accelerating because of the multiplication of competing interests. People fear a multi-polar world because they know that there will be more conflict between competing power centers rather having the one singular pole around which the First World gets to orbit.
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May 4, 2024 08:47
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crepeface posted:way behind on this thread but i'm continuing this tangent here so as not to derail the israel/palestine thread: Well, that’s what Henry VIII did, didn’t he? He created a new church, one that was not beholden to the Catholic Church, and then he got divorced. Also that is what FDR did when he created the New Deal. They created workarounds when they weren’t getting what they wanted anymore, or to fix the system when it was on the brink of collapse. I think we are on the same page because I also see capitalism as a man made machine that was made over the course of generations, the part I have difficulty believing is that the ruling class is completely boxed in and they have limited control. And, to be perfectly clear, the thing that annoys me is when people treat Capitalism like it’s a divine entity that’s beyond mortal control. If you believe that then you’ve already lost.
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May 4, 2024 09:09
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:I think people try too hard to come up with a framework that denies America's importance and the importance of nation-states within the global capitalist system. It's messy and it's contradictory but that's the essential ad hoc nature of how these systems develop. Capital can be both international but also has a residency, and states can act in the interests of the international bourgeois franchise but more often act in the interests of their national bourgeois. The primary characteristic of being within the imperial core is that your national bourgeois gets to assert its own interests over the interests of the global periphery, so long as they remain subservient to the United States, which fully accounts for half of NATO's military power in total and is the only NATO country that still has a functioning blue water navy, even if it's falling apart. this is what spurred my reply: DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:it’s not the American empire because the empire is operated by, for, and on behalf of capital, which has no flag and no borders. America is one of the pre-eminent hosts of the parasite but if America were destroyed by a meteor tomorrow capital would simply reconstitute itself in another country and resume running the empire the exact same way it is now. there is nothing particularly or peculiarly American about capitalist hegemony, except to burgers who literally cannot conceive of a global event that doesn't revolve around their nation. Clip-On Fedora posted:No. It's not a Lovecraftian entity, it's a system of control that the few use to control the many, one that has been very effective for the past several centuries. That's why it appealed to America, Europe, and the UK, and that's why they used it. That's it. And the only reason America is in charge is because Europe bankrupted itself during WWII, and not because the Robber Barons sacrificed the right kind of cow to the Invisible Hand. The reason why nobody has changed course is because capitalism is all the ruling class knows anymore, it's the only tool left in their belt thanks to their own incompetence and corruption, and they would rather have the world burn then step down or give away even a fraction of their power, because that's what they're like and that's what they've been like since before capitalism was a gleam in a Dutchman's eye. i think the main point i want to make is to highlight the degree that the ruling class individuals are bound by the same rules of capital accumulation/profit/etc. america is vital to the current global system and people actively engineered institutions (like the UN, IMF, WTO) in our modern world to support it but they are not in control of it. it's not a system that the few use to control the many, it's a system that was created by the few (who can exert some influence) that now controls everything.
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May 4, 2024 09:10
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crepeface posted:this is what spurred my reply: I'm not sure anyone (serious) thinks the United States controls everything like we're calling the shots on everything that happens in the imperial core. But also if you step out of line we'll blow up your critical infrastructure, act like the Russians did it, and send you down a deindustrializing spiral that guarantees security dependence on the US military.
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May 4, 2024 09:18
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:I'm not sure anyone (serious) thinks the United States controls everything like we're calling the shots on everything that happens in the imperial core. But also if you step out of line we'll blow up your critical infrastructure, act like the Russians did it, and send you down a deindustrializing spiral that guarantees security dependence on the US military. i'm not really ready to go into marxist thread level detail on this, but I think what you're missing here is that europe didn't step out of line, russia did, and america didn't impose deindustrialization on europe against the wishes of the european bourgeoisie, but imposed disconnection on russia with the full and enthusiastic support of the european bourgeoisie. american empire theory, insofar as i've been exposed to it, seems to struggle to provide satisfying explanations for this in the same way it struggles to deal with the deindustrialization of america itself. edit: even talking about a european and american bourgeoisie at this scale seems nonsensical to me because of the interdependent and frankly circular nature of western capital, so i should probably just not speak. Zodium has issued a correction as of 09:33 on May 4, 2024 |
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May 4, 2024 09:29
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Zodium posted:i'm not really ready to go into marxist thread level detail on this, but I think what you're missing here is that europe didn't step out of line, russia did, and america didn't impose deindustrialization on europe against the wishes of the european bourgeoisie, but imposed disconnection on russia with the full and enthusiastic support of the european bourgeoisie. american empire theory, insofar as i've been exposed to it, seems to struggle to provide satisfying explanations for this in the same way it struggles to deal with the deindustrialization of america itself. You're ignoring the fact that the United States blew up the pipeline first and left the German bourgeois with no choice but to go along with it, because the "facts on the ground" couldn't be undone, and any pursuit of justice would only lead to further sabotage. The US is a mafioso gangster state, and if you don't tow the line you'll wake up in bed with a horse's head.
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May 4, 2024 09:37
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:You're ignoring the fact that the United States blew up the pipeline first and left the German bourgeois with no choice but to go along with it, because the "facts on the ground" couldn't be undone, and any pursuit of justice would only lead to further sabotage. Yes. Were it not for the War in Ukraine I would have no problem accepting what Zodium is saying, but blowing up the Nordstream pipeline seems to indicate a pecking order between the United States and Europe.
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May 4, 2024 09:41
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:You're ignoring the fact that the United States blew up the pipeline first and left the German bourgeois with no choice but to go along with it, because the "facts on the ground" couldn't be undone, and any pursuit of justice would only lead to further sabotage. The US is a mafioso gangster state, and if you don't tow the line you'll wake up in bed with a horse's head. I regretted making the post almost immediately because I realized I had already acquiesced to an american and european bourgeoisie as the drivers of western states' behavior, from which I concede american empire theory follows, and I know I need to do a lot of mapping work on ownership networks before I can present an alternative to that. suffice it for now to say I don't find this convincing though. edit: there are two possible outcomes from such a mapping I can foresee: 1) ownership is locally structured along nation-state lines such that capital in america is predominantly controlled by americans, capital in germany is predominantly controlled by germans, etc. from this, american empire theory follows. 2) ownership is globally unstructured and freely crosses nation-state lines such that capital in america is controlled by a mixture of americans and germans, capital in germany is controlled by a mixture of germans and americans, etc. from this, something else follows. i think the latter is a better description of ownership networks in the 21st century, and the former is a better description of it in the 20th century, but it will ultimately require *drawn-out sigh* data collection. who wants to be my unpaid intern? Zodium has issued a correction as of 09:58 on May 4, 2024 |
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May 4, 2024 09:47
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There's always been a serious undercurrent of some desire for owning the reins of power by the European Bourgeosise, coming down to the last vestiges of nationalism that held sway in their respective countries' elite post-WWII. Biggest example was de Gaulle, who as many of you probably know was infamous for this, his one big move being divesting a ton of France's strategic military capabilities from NATO command. The French, British and Germans have all tried to find their own ways to hold on to their international powers held through national boundaries rather than be tied up utterly in the American Empire's orbit; Gaullist ideology has always been a loud enough background noise in France and the Francophonie is still a thing, Germany's dominance of the EU is often groused about by certain libs, and the Brits were constantly trying to hold on to the Empire by one way or the other. In the end they all just got whacked for their efforts, one way or the other. The Suez Canal crisis would be the big example for the Cold War period, but in modern times its Nordstream and the AUKUS deal, which was as blatant a 'sit the gently caress down and shut up' move as one could be, albeit behind closed doors. Ultimately, by virtue of the national superstructure (as opposed to the international superstructure that is the ideal of the globalized, 'rules-led international order'), there are Europeans (both elite and worker) who prefer to have some national autonomy (IIRC Stalin actually talks somewhat about this with regards to nationalism and class interactions within the territories of the old Russian Empire, gotta reread Marxism and the National Question), but when they keep getting whacked by the US, more and more either give up or defect to the hegemony itself. (ergo, the Atlanticists) Iriscoral has issued a correction as of 10:49 on May 4, 2024 |
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May 4, 2024 10:40
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certainly there are european, and american for that matter, capitalists who would prefer an ownership structure along nation-state lines. what I am positing is that much like imperialism emerges out of sufficiently mature capitalist economies as a higher scale that dominates system behavior, so too has a new, higher scale emerged from the sufficiently mature imperialist world-system that also dominates system behavior.
Zodium has issued a correction as of 10:52 on May 4, 2024 |
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May 4, 2024 10:47
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IMO those investitures where local capital can be co-owned by an international bourgeois can only happen in the first place because of the diplomatic arrangements that sanctify private property claims, and the military power to enforce those arrangements. The fact remains that only the United States is capable of martialing that kind of global imperial power within the First World, which by necessity makes it the locus of global capital power. That's a fact that the United States has exploited for its own gain since the Bretton Woods system was spooled up. Now maybe, hypothetically, the EU could fill in the role left by the United States, but the EU isn't a real country. It has actual national contradictions based on centuries old grievances and local geopolitics which will prevent any meaningful military collaboration from happening. Even the investment funds that have a direct stake in American government contractors have residencies in the United States. Just Northrop Grumman's biggest investors for instance: Capital Group HQ Los Angeles, State Street Global Advisors HQ Boston, Vanguard Group HQ Malvern PA. Some of the most powerful investment funds in the world which nominally represent an international clientele are dependents of the US legal regime. Again, I'm not claiming that this is a literal and unambiguous American Empire, it's just that the United States retains executive privileges within the world system because it's the "Leader of the Free World" in a materially meaningful and indispensable way.
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May 4, 2024 10:51
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May 4, 2024 10:52
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Zodium posted:certainly there are european, and american for that matter, capitalists who would prefer an ownership structure along nation-state lines. what I am positing is that much like imperialism emerges out of sufficiently mature capitalist economies as a higher scale that dominates system behavior, so too has a new, higher scale emerged from the sufficiently mature imperialist world-system that also dominates system behavior. I'd argue that's also because of advancements in communication and transport technology that allow the facsmile of a 'global society' to emerge, thus allowing the foot soldiers of this new world-system to rise. One candidate I feel are the middle class sufficiently uplifted and benefiting off this increased access to the world; over here in Asia you can see those people in expats who spend more time trying to extend the levers of international capital and hegemonic narrative, or the 'american-brained' people who don't live in the US but constantly export culture wars or other American related political bullshit to Asia, mostly to grift. Their actions, while done at the behest of American/international capital, are to enrich themselves, but extend the tentacles of this world-system in exchange. But that exists because its so much easier to move capital and information in thie modern day. I think you are correct, but as all systems rely on human buy in, perhaps its better to look at things from the ground up. (This is also where I start thinking back to my theory of the hyperstructure, a superstructure level that manages to overturn the normal relationship between the base and the superstructure, and a hegemonic world system might be a suitable candidate) Iriscoral has issued a correction as of 10:59 on May 4, 2024 |
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May 4, 2024 10:55
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Iriscoral posted:I'd argue that's also because of advancements in communication and transport technology that allow the facsmile of a 'global society' to emerge, thus allowing the foot soldiers of this new world-system to rise. One candidate I feel are the middle class sufficiently uplifted and benefiting off this increased access to the world; over here in Asia you can see those people in expats who spend more time trying to extend the levers of international capital and hegemonic narrative, or the 'american-brained' people who don't live in the US but constantly export culture wars or other American related political bullshit to Asia, mostly to grift. Their actions, while done at the behest of American/international capital, are to enrich themselves, but extend the tentacles of this world-system in exchange. But that exists because its so much easier to move capital and information in thie modern day. precisely. that would be cybernetic capitalism: a material-technological ecosystem which unifies the ecological information that drives bourgeois behavior at a global scale, which in turn drives state behavior. it's my hope that by working up from the basic building blocks (affordances, effectivities, niche), it will eventually be possible to model state behavior at this higher scale in a better way than american empire theory allows for.
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May 4, 2024 11:07
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Zodium posted:precisely. that would be cybernetic capitalism: a material-technological ecosystem which unifies the ecological information that drives bourgeois behavior at a global scale, which in turn drives state behavior. it's my hope that by working up from the basic building blocks (affordances, effectivities, niche), it will eventually be possible to model state behavior at this higher scale in a better way than american empire theory allows for. It has, however, made him into a very, very smart boy with something like a university degree in Truth. Instead of building Communism, he now builds a precise model of this grotesque, duplicitous world.
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May 4, 2024 11:14
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i don't know how za/um discovered me, but that quote is a direct attack, on me, personally. 
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May 4, 2024 11:16
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not denying the US's central position in the current world order. i'm trying to hone in on the degree to which (even powerful) individuals are free to control the system. can yellen do anything but raise interest rates and put tariffs on chinese EVs? i suspect that if she didn't, she'd just be replaced.
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May 4, 2024 11:39
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Zodium posted:i don't know how za/um discovered me, but that quote is a direct attack, on me, personally. The point, however, is to change it 
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May 4, 2024 11:46
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Orange Devil posted:The point, however, is to change it You alone, against every living thing, against every human alive: eight hundred trillion reál in the hands of an *impossibly* well organized ruling class; towering city blocks of bank-men who have the ears of prime ministers; million-headed armies of nations and the love of your own mother! You — against the atom, the charm and the spin. Where the whole world failed — matter failed to bend to human will; human will failed to get out of bed and tie its laces — you alone, single-handedly, will rebuild the dreams of the working class. You are The Last Communist. Now get to work, comrade.
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May 4, 2024 11:51
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Being able to turn bells & whistles and spin knobs on financial policies doesn't have quite the blunt instrumentation that direct violence has, which is why the United States is Alpha and the rest of the First World are our dogs. We're backsliding into a vulgar imperialist mindset because the end of the Cold War also eliminated the need for international anticommunist collaboration. "White supremacy" and occidental culture and all that horseshit were post-hoc rationalizations for limiting the bourgeois franchise and accumulating surplus values to themselves. The idea that we're going to be advancing towards a post-racial and international capitalism was a delusion of Cold War triumphalism. There has to be some kind of mechanism for limiting the franchise and keeping the surplus value spigot flowing, and that means cutting out former allies who are now competitors and making them dependents of the United States instead. We have to start kneecapping the EU to make sure the bulk of all those superprofits flow to North America.
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May 4, 2024 11:53
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i think that is basically just american exceptionalism, but inverted. it will go the opposite way: america will be made to expend its resources and labor power to maintain the stability of the core, at great cost to americans. edit: i think the basic error you're making is assuming that because america drove the process from which the higher scale emerged, it follows that america can reverse it. but because of the interdependency of capital ownership, it is an irreversible process. there is no going back. should any part of the core fall, the integrity of the entire system will be fatally compromised. Zodium has issued a correction as of 12:06 on May 4, 2024 |
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May 4, 2024 12:00
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Zodium posted:i think that is basically just american exceptionalism, but inverted. it will go the opposite way: america will be made to expend its resources and labor power to maintain the stability of the core, at great cost to americans. imo there is an important and ongoing process of peripheralisation of previously-core polities which tends to stabilise this system. the more internationalised capitalists can withdraw to the new core, whereas the ones who remain invested in local sectors are simply going to lose out. these peripheralised entities will then be allowed to fail - thus, IRA subsidies and the cutting of european economic ties with russia. since the mass base of "cybernetic capitalism" is wholly on-board with the peripheralisation of nation-states to which they feel very little loyalty anyway, a rump national bourgeoisie will start raising objections - and become smacked down in the face of reality.
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May 4, 2024 12:22
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V. Illych L. posted:imo there is an important and ongoing process of peripheralisation of previously-core polities which tends to stabilise this system. the more internationalised capitalists can withdraw to the new core, whereas the ones who remain invested in local sectors are simply going to lose out. these peripheralised entities will then be allowed to fail - thus, IRA subsidies and the cutting of european economic ties with russia. since the mass base of "cybernetic capitalism" is wholly on-board with the peripheralisation of nation-states to which they feel very little loyalty anyway, a rump national bourgeoisie will start raising objections - and become smacked down in the face of reality. i think this makes the same reversibility error. the international bourgeoisie cannot simply pick up stake and move to america, because their power rests on the complex interdependencies of the cybernetic capitalist system, which would be fatally compromised should a part of the core be allowed to fail. the whole system must stand, or none of it will. if a core state were to become peripheralized, e.g., germany approaching south american material conditions, without the entire system collapsing, that would be a serious problem for my theory. but, correct or not, that is in the relatively distant future, in any case.
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May 4, 2024 12:51
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Germany only needs to be weakened insofar as it guarantees their dependence on the United States. Why should the US be expending all this effort to guarantee the security and profitability of these loser European crybabies who keep shoveling the proceeds of the global south into their effete and well manicured maws while risking nothing of their own to do it? These arrangements were all secured with American blood & guts. Aren't we entitled to be the master of the free world as the guarantor of its security?
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May 4, 2024 12:56
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